Брайан Гарфилд - The Last Bridge

McKuen was coming back from the cockpit. He said, “I forgot to ask you something.”

“Go ahead,” said Tyreen.

“Suppose I drop you people and then head out to sea. Once I’m away from your position, I can break radio silence and get in touch with the Seventh Fleet. They can tell me where to find them.”

Tyreen said, “If that’s what you want to do, go ahead.”

McKuen frowned. “What’s the catch?”

“The minute you open up on that radio, Lieutenant, the Reds will know this isn’t one of their planes. They’ll let you have it with everything they’ve got. The Chinese have got a whole wing of MIGs stationed at Sama. They’d shoot you down before you got within miles of a Navy ship.”

“Well, and thanks again to you,” McKuen said, and went forward again.

Saville said, “In a way, this may be a break for us. That storm could play hell with Ho Chi Minh’s radar.”

The plane bucked with turbulence. Tyreen sat braced against the fuselage and let his attention rove among the four soldiers. Each of them had been selected, screened, culled, and filed. He had used Hooker before, and he knew Saville. He did not know either one of the two Vietnamese sergeants, but their records were impressive. Nhu Van Sun was an ex-farmer, brawny and evidently childlike, but the record said he liked gadgets and knew how to rig booby traps and handle any kind of communications equipment ever made. He was expert in the many forms of deadly hand-to-hand combat; and while he had never been to America, he spoke passable English, which was sometimes important in a team where the American members might speak uncertain Vietnamese at best. Tyreen spoke good Vietnamese; Saville, who was a diligent, deliberate student, spoke not only Vietnamese, but French and one dialect of Chinese as well. Sergeant Hooker spoke a few common words of Vietnamese, and bad English. Sergeant Khang had been in the States long enough to be comfortable with barracks slang. The record stated that Khang was a good guerrilla soldier, and that was a valuable quality; it took a special kind of mind to make a man a good guerrilla fighter, and Khang had that talent. But his greatest usefulness of the moment was his intimate knowledge of the terrain around Chutrang and the Sang Chu gorge; he had been born and raised there.

And then there was J. D. Hooker — a brutal man, small of eyes and small of brain. But Hooker’s eyes could see twice as far as any other man’s, and Hooker’s ears could pick up the tiniest of sounds, and if a man wanted a bridge blown up properly, he sent for J. D. Hooker.

Theodore Saville drank his third cup of coffee and did not smile when he discovered Tyreen’s eyes on him. Saville was an inveterate beer drinker; he had the constitution of a truck horse. In his twenty-four years of service he had lugged himself up to a captaincy from the ranks, mainly by sheer brawn and doggedness. If there was a more reliable man in the Army, Tyreen had not yet met him. Still holding Saville’s eyes, Tyreen smiled and nodded briefly. Saville held out the coffee jug, and Tyreen accepted it. He had been awake twenty-four hours now, and it would be at least another day before he would have a chance to sleep.

Tyreen knew better than to slow down long enough to give himself a chance to think. It would do no good to consider his position. He was sick, and he had no business being here; he was a tired man, jaded and worn out. But he would keep up with the rest of them — more than that, he would stay ahead of them. He did not allow himself to wonder how.

He was dangerously close to a self-inspection. He had the need to act. He stood up and said, “We’ve got about fifteen minutes. Better start getting the gear together.”

Tyreen’s tongue played with one of his back teeth. It was a false tooth, hollowed out. The Army had inserted a cyanide pill inside it. It was no hard task to work the tooth loose with the tongue and swallow the poison. It could be done without once opening the mouth. A man had been known to kill himself with the cyanide pill in his sleep.

He had sheet metal in the soles of his jump boots and a load of equipment on his back that would stagger a mule: he had his submachine gun, his tools, his rations, his ammunition, and the tank of an underwater breathing apparatus. His parachute hung down below the seat of his pants. Canteen and pistol and bayonet rattled against his thighs, hung on his ammunition belt. He glanced at Saville, who carried all the same equipment, plus a sackful of radio gear, and at J. D. Hooker, who carried a wickedly heavy sack of explosives and demolition equipment, and at Sergeant Sun, who carried a Czech light machine gun with a bipod mount, and at Nguyen Khang, who carried the boxed ammunition belts for the machine gun.

Theodore Saville picked up a knapsack full of Communist-made grenades and hooked it to the front of his harness above his chest chute. He drained the last of the coffee into his mouth and tossed the jug aside. He took a last pull on his cigarette and ground it out underfoot. Carrying two hundred pounds of metal and fabric, he moved effortlessly.

Tyreen said, “Hook up.” He made his way forward to the cockpit.

McKuen was struggling with the controls. He glanced around briefly. “We’re flying on a wing and a swear, Colonel. Number two engine’s making plenty of trouble. How far is it to that emergency strip in the mountains?”

“About forty miles from the drop zone.”

“I wish I had me four-leaf clover,” said McKuen. “You’ve got about three minutes. Do I keep her on twelve hundred feet?”

“Dead level,” Tyreen said.

“That might be easier if I didn’t have to talk to the altimeter through interpreters. I’ll be givin’ you a red warning light now. The light will flash green when it’s time for you gentlemen to do the Geronimo act. That is, presuming the green light bulb ain’t burned out. I tested it back at Nha Trang, and it worked then. But this aeroplane didn’t come with a written guarantee, you’ll be understandin’.”

“Sing out when you flash the light, just to be sure.”

“Sure and I will. And, Colonel...?”

“What?”

“Good hunting.”

“Thanks, McKuen. I’ll see you back in Saigon.”

“Sure you will.”

“Good luck, Mister Shannon,” Tyreen said.

“And the same to you, Colonel.” Shannon’s face was tight.

McKuen said, “Buck up, me lad. It’ll be something to be tellin’ your grandchildren about.”

“If I live to have any.”

“So long,” Tyreen said, and went back into the plane. He heard McKuen’s voice following him:

“ Ciao. ”

Tyreen pushed past the others to the jump door in the tail section. The ceiling was low here, and he had to stoop. The red warning light glared at him unblinkingly. “Watch the light,” he said. “And be ready to pull your emergency chutes. We’re pretty close to the water.”

“And pretty close to the reef,” Saville said. “If any of us overshoot by as much as three seconds, he’ll wind up with a hunk of coral up his ass.”

J. D. Hooker said, “Then you better move fast, Captain. You’re comin’ out last.”

“Thanks for the concern, Sergeant.”

“Turn on your oxygen tanks, and watch that light,” Tyreen said.

He stood in the open door with the cold night whipping past. At twelve hundred feet there was a light drizzle of rain. Pellets of water stung his exposed face. It was a long three minutes — was the light working? He braced his hands in the doorway. His trouser legs flapped violently against his calves. One of the sergeants was crowded up close behind him. He broke out in a dizzy wave of chills. The wind stung his eyes, and he could not keep them open long enough to see what was below. A burst of wind almost tore him out the door. He heard a small sound — McKuen bellowing at the top of his lungs from the forward cockpit. The light flickered green. He felt the brief pressure of Saville’s hand on his shoulder. He shouted, “Go!” And thrust himself out into the night.